Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!

The last few weeks have been amazingly stressful. I am ready to leave the planet on the next warp-capable space ship. Or simply welcome the end of time when skies roll back and Jesus gathers His sheep. Either will do.

My father is in the hospital recovering from quadruple heart bypass surgery. Additionally, they replaced a heart valve, fixed another valve, corrected arrhythmia, did a flush and fill, changed the spark plugs and oil, and tuned the carburetor. And after all this, there is still an overhaul of the air breather to come.

Ok, well, maybe they did not do all that last part. But they DID do the heart stuff. And the fact remains that he is still in ICU a week after the surgery. He has had trouble with lungs and oxygen intake and even had a close call with congestive heart failure at least once (that I know of). Yes, it has really been a stressful week.

So I sit here about 300 miles away with only sparse phone contact to keep me updated. Honestly speaking, I don't know that I would really want to hear all the scary details of each day. Sometimes its best to just hear the summaries. But I wish I could be there with my mother. But still, I have to work. I MUST keep my job to feed my family of seven. I am thankful my brother has been there and has been exceedingly helpful.

Still, these things bother me.

And how do you deal with these kinds of stress? Well, people have different ways of dealing with stress, but when I don't do something, my ADD brain kicks into overdrive and refuses to slow down. The result is near panic attacks with intense stress. These things are not really good on the body and so I have found a few ways to relieve stress.

You know I would like to say the first thing I do is pray. I would like to say that. But it seems I often forget to pray for stress release. But when I do, God is faithful. Sometimes He just calms me directly. Other times He points me to something else that calms me.

The next thing is to just sit with my wife and be with her. That calms me so much. We have been married nearly a year and a half now and truly if feels like we have known each other for much longer - in a good way. She knows me well. She pays attention and seems to know what to do to help me. Likewise, I do all I can to really know her and be there for her when she needs me. It truly is a God-given partnership. It is unlike anything either of us have experienced in the past in our former marriages.

The problem is that I am about 225 miles away from my wife most days because of my job. That makes being with her a logistical nightmare most week days.

And another thing I do is to listen to music. Not just any music, but music that is positive, upbeat, and does not bear anger, angst, or sorrow. Mostly I am speaking of Christian music in this category. Just today I was listening to some country music, some rock music, and some pop music. But none of those really helped. So that was when I cranked up the Newsboys. I could literally feel the stress and tension begin to evaporate as my mind turned closer toward God.

And finally, I use outright escapism. I play video games and get lost in their virtual worlds. Is this the best thing to do? Arguably no. But if nothing else brings about stress reduction, I see it as a reasonable alternative to doing nothing and a much superior alternative to medication.

And when I am not playing video games and running around with my virtual self, I am often found working on a fantasy novel. In my head I run off to a world of elves, dwarves, orcs, and other things that most people don't normally think about. In that world, problems are difficult but solvable. And the problems that cannot be solved are merely part of the ecosystem of the story environment.

But for now, as I write this, the Newsboys are playing in my Amarok music player through my headphones and I am quite calm and the stress is drastically reduced. But after work, I will be cruising around a virtual world destroying monsters and leveling up my virtual persona.

Yes, life is better with electronics. Or at least a pen and paper.



Copyright 2007, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)